SLO County supervisors update guidelines for advisory councils after problems in Oceano
Folks who live in unincorporated areas of San Luis Obispo County will have clearer ways to give input to county government after the Board of Supervisors updated its guidelines for advisory councils.
On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to approve an updated handbook for community advisory councils, which are independent groups that review land-use policies, programs, permitting, environmental review and zoning projects on behalf of their community and make recommendations to the board, SLO County deputy director of planning Mark LaRue said at the meeting.
“The goal of the handbook and the training is to say: Here’s best practices, here’s how to run efficient public meetings, here’s the best way to give advice to the board in an understandable way,” county counsel Rita Neal said.
The county has 11 community advisory councils, LaRue said.
Some councils operate smoothly, while others have encountered obstacles over the past few years.
Last December, the board voted to unrecognize the Oceano Advisory Council for overstepping its official duties as an advisory council and rejecting community input.
At that same meeting, Supervisor Dawn Ortiz-Legg proposed that the county create uniform rules and responsibilities for advisory councils. On Feb. 28, the board appointed Ortiz-Legg and Supervisor Jimmy Paulding to run a committee that did just that.
The committee sent a survey to each advisory board to distribute to their members in May and collected 75 responses, LaRue said.
The county then updated the Advisory Council Handbook with new guidelines to reflect recommendations made by survey respondents, LaRue said.
“There’s a whole host of things identified in the manual as best practices to really kind of raise the bar for how we conduct our community meetings,” Paulding said.
In May, the county will offer an optional training to members of community advisory boards to refresh them on the handbook and the county land-use process, according to LaRue.
The county used to offer a similar training before 2020, but the pandemic ended the program. Now, the county hopes to offer an annual spring training to advisory board members, according to a county news release.
Community Advisory Council members can sign a code of civility
According to the staff report, the survey respondents agreed on a need for seven changes to the handbook:
- The need to clarify the role of advisory boards
The benefit of a mission statement and clear bylaws
The benefit of a standardized advisory council recommendation form for land-use matters
The desire for the county to hold an annual orientation for new advisory council members
The willingness of advisory council members to sign a code of civility
The importance of advisory council members to be elected
The benefit of an established set of uniform rules of procedure for conducting meetings
The handbook clarifies that the primary role of advisory councils is to review land-use related projects, LaRue said.
Meanwhile, the handbook recommends that advisory councils adopt a mission statement, bylaws and rules of procedure that govern how their meetings are conducted and how they give feedback to the county on projects of interest, according to LaRue.
The county recommends that advisory councils hold elections to decide their members, he said.
Additionally, meetings should be regular and scheduled, and members should be present to cast a vote, LaRue said.
The handbook now includes a code of civility, which members are encouraged to sign, Paulding said.
The county also added examples of questions members should ask about each project before providing a recommendation to the Board of Supervisors and county staff.
The supervisors encouraged councils to follow the guidelines established in the handbook.
“The influence of any given advisory council depends entirely on the quality of its process,” Supervisor Bruce Gibson said. “When they do engage the process in a good faith effort to come to a solution that’s good for the community as a whole, they can do amazing things.”
Councils are not required to follow the handbook, however.
Right now, the county considers community advisory councils to be private organizations, Neal said.
Imposing regulations on councils would mean a representative of the county counsel’s office must be present at each of their meetings, and the councils would have to comply with the California Brown Act and Public Records Act Requests — which would burden county resources, Neal said.
Meanwhile, allowing each council to have slightly different mission statements and bylaws would “allow each community to form an advisory council which met their culture and met their personality,” Neal said.
Though councils aren’t required to comply with the handbook, the board can vote to unrecognize a council if it is no longer serving its mission, Neal said.
Paulding said its up to each county supervisor to work with the advisory councils in their district to help them comply with the handbook.
“The advisory councils that serve my district aren’t perfect,” Paulding said. “I don’t think any advisory council is perfect. My plan is to take these best practices to each of those councils and encourage modification of bylaws to ensure that these different concerns are addressed.”
